Florida has 2,117 orthopedic surgeons across 67 counties, but 19 counties lack a practicing orthopedic surgeon, according to a Sept. 4 study published in Cureus.
Nonmetropolitan counties are home to just 19 of the state’s orthopedic surgeons — 0.9% of the total — compared with 2,098, or 99.1%, practicing in metropolitan counties. Of the 19 counties with no orthopedic surgeon, 14, or 73.7%, were nonmetropolitan.
Metropolitan counties averaged 8.33 orthopedic surgeons per 100,000 residents, compared with 1.79 per 100,000 residents in nonmetropolitan counties.
Researchers analyzed 45 metropolitan and 22 nonmetropolitan counties spanning 53,654 square miles.
The study’s authors are affiliated with the University of Florida College of Medicine-Jacksonville, the University of Central Florida in Orlando and the University of South Florida in Tampa, Fla.
The authors note that no single fix — expanding telehealth, broadband access, or in-state residency slots — fully resolves the gap, since Florida already trains a large share of orthopedic residents yet retains only 18.9% of them to practice in the state.
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